The painting features St. George wearing what appears to be a black and white checkered keffiyah. Above him is a picture of the Madonna, featuring a crescent moon â€” one of the most prominent symbols of Islam â€” the Jewish Star of David and a cross on her crown, surrounded by Arabic writing.

Wonder what that “Arabic Writing” is all about. Any Arabic translators among our readers?

In a Sacred Italian Race, Some Bristle at the Prize

SIENA, Italy â€” No horse race is more sacred in Italy than the Palio, which traces its lineage back 700 years. This year, however, the hotly contested chase has taken an unexpectedly ecumenical â€” and disputed â€” twist.

For the first time, a Muslim painter was asked to design the Palio, or banner, that the winner takes home at the end of the race, which is conducted two days every year around Siena’s distinctive shell-shaped square.

Not everyone was pleased with the choice, though that was not evident Friday evening, when residents of the winning district, or contrada, as Siena’s 17 neighborhoods within the city walls are known, jumped over fencing that lined the square to grab the Palio, crying and shouting with joy.

The horse representing their contrada had won the race, and they did not seem particularly bothered that the banner has generated controversy in the local and national media during the past weeks over what some have called “a profanation” of the Sienese tradition.

The artist AlÃ¬ Hassoun, 46, who was born in Lebanon but moved in 1982 to Italy, where he gained citizenship, painted St. George as a knight wearing a black-and-white kaffiyeh. Above the Virgin Mary’s face, in Arabic, is the title of the 19th chapter of the Koran, which is dedicated to the Madonna. In her crown, an Arab crescent, the symbol of Islam, is placed on one side of the cross; a Star of David, the symbol of Judaism, is on the other side.

“My Palio talks about spirituality in general, about religions, about the possible encounter among the three monotheistic religions that allows us to transcend our own faith,” Mr. Hassoun said in a telephone interview.

The local administration, which commissioned the banner, chose Mr. Hassoun because his art is traditional, highly figurative and easy to enjoy, Mayor Maurizio Cenni of Siena said at a news conference a few hours before Friday’s race.

Traditionally, the rectangular silk Palio honors the Virgin Mary. Palio rules passed by the local administration say that the design requires the Madonna’s image at the top, the date of the race, Siena’s black-and-white shield, and possibly the symbols of the 10 contradas chosen to compete in each race.

The tradition of having the banner painted by a non-Sienese artist began in the 1970s. Since then, national and international artists like Renato Guttuso of Italy and Fernando Botero of Colombia have done the honors. Some of these banners were criticized as too secular.

When the banner was presented at City Hall on June 26, more than six months after its design was commissioned by the local administration, the archbishop of Siena, Colle Val d’Elsa and Montalcino, Msgr. Antonio Buoncristiani, noted that the representation had to resemble the face of the Madonna of Provenzano, to whom this July’s race is dedicated.

Monsignor Buoncristiani said he appreciated Mr. Hassoun’s banner in its entirety, but asked that in the future his office be shown the preliminary sketch so it could give an opinion on its religious aspects because it is blessed and shown in church.

Then newspapers began weighing in, starting with the daily newspaper La Padania, the house organ of the anti-immigrant Northern League. A headline on one of its articles read, “The hands of Islam on Siena’s Palio.”

La Nazione, the largest local daily newspaper, published a letter by two citizens pleading with the archbishop not to allow “an image that is not Christian” to be blessed in the Church of St. Mary of Provenzano, part of a tradition the evening before the race.

And theÂ Vatican expert Antonio Socci, writing in the conservative newspaper Libero, said “something serious” was happening in Siena “from the spiritual and symbolic point of view.”

The archbishop’s office responded to the heated debate with a statement acknowledging that placing symbols of the three monotheistic religions on the Virgin’s crown was “problematic” and that using a quote from the Koran “lends itself to debate.” The statement said the archbishop would make an official comment on the issue after the race, possibly on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Northern Italy and the historically left-wing Tuscany are not new to such religious clashes, often orchestrated by political parties. For years, in Colle Val d’Elsa, northwest of Siena, the construction of a mosque has pitted the left-wing administration against a group of citizens who formed an antimosque committee that helped elect two local council members who brought pressure that delayed the building. On various occasions, pigs’ heads were found on the building site. The mosque has been completed, but it is waiting for interior furnishings and permits before it is used for prayer services.

In May, the Northern League, saying it was honoring the memory of the Tuscan writerÂ Oriana Fallaci, who vehemently opposed Islam in the final days of her life, began a new campaign against the construction of a mosque in Greve in Chianti. But Greve’s mayor, Alberto BencistÃ , said the league was overreacting. A local association had offered local Muslims only a room to meet in, he said; there were no plans to build a mosque. Nonetheless, the Northern League held an unofficial referendum against a mosque in the small town.

The Palio is a medieval feast dedicated to the Virgin Mary with deep religious roots, particularly in Siena, where the Virgin is especially venerated. It allows for breaches of church decorum: the horses, for example, are brought into churches where they, and the jockeys, are blessed by the priests of the local districts. The banner, or “rag,” as it is known in Siena, is an object of devotion not only for the two days of the race, July 2 and Aug. 16, but also throughout the year.

“We don’t really care about the painting,” said Francesco Bartali, 25. “For a contrada person, all that matters is to win the rag. Even if it was blank, we’d still cry over it.”

In a sense, no Jewish symbols actually appear in the image, since the Jewish Magen David” was usurped by the Seljuk Turks as the “Seal of Solomon” — many Seljuk Emirates in Anatolia used it in their flags…

And the keffiyeh is equivalent to the swastika as a symbol of Judeophobic genocidalism, at least for me…

Italy is being invaded yet again by the Saracens, but this time from within instead of without, this time not “mit Feuer Schwert un Groessenwahn” but through constant concessions to the totalitarian system of Sha’a’ir Allah…

“A scar on the Palio”
– The Italian Journal Il Giornale, about the keffieh on Saint George

No doubt, this is seen as an attack on the local culture, their history and their symbols.

They don’t accept our culture, while we have to accept Their

This is the general sentiment all over Europe about “diversity and multiculturalism”, ie thereligionofpeace. Europeans are now facing this principle from North to South, East to West.

Guess this comment in Il Giornale, might represent the average Italian of Sienna

“Certain “intellectuals” praise multiculturalism, diversity. They don’t accept our culture, while we have to accept Their. For the Senesi (citizens of Sienna) The Palio represents their glorious history and is of great importance.”

A DJ’s teatowel on St George is art, but a bomb in Mo’s turban is a “crime against islam”, causing endless hurt feelings, rage, and all the rest.

But a warning for allah and its followers:

Psalm 37 (Of David )

[…]
8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fretâ€”it leads only to evil.

9 For evil men will be cut off,
but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.

10 A little while, and the wicked will be no more;
though you look for them, they will not be found.

11 But the meek will inherit the land
and enjoy great peace.
[…]

Matthew 5

5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

There is a tradition in the Holy Land of Christians and Muslim going to an Eastern Orthodox shrine of St. George at Beith Jala, Jews also attending the site in the belief that the prophet Elijah was buried there. This is testified to by Elizabeth Finn in 1866, where she wrote, “St. George killed the dragon in this country Palestine; and the place is shown close to Beyrut. Many churches and convents are named after him. The church at Lydda is dedicated to St. George: so is a convent near Bethlehem, and another small one just opposite the Jaffa gate; and others beside. The Arabs believe that St. George can restore mad people to their senses; and to say a person has been sent to St. George’s, is equivalent to saying he has been sent to a madhouse. It is singular that the Moslem Arabs share this veneration for St. George, and send their mad people to be cured by him, as well as the Christians. But they commonly call him El Khudder â€”The Greenâ€”according to their favorite manner of using epithets instead of names. Why he should be called green, however, I cannot tellâ€”unless it is from the colour of his horse. Gray horses are called green in Arabic.” [50] A possible explanation for this colour reference is Al Khidr, the erstwhile tutor of Moses, gained his name from having sat in a barren desert, turning it into a lush green paradise.

A Saint George sign on a seminary gate, GermanyWilliam Dalrymple reviewing the literature in 1999 tells us that J.E. Hanauer in his 1907 book Folklore of the Holy Land: Muslim, Christian and Jewish “mentioned a shrine in the village of Beit Jala, beside Bethlehem, which at the time was frequented by all three of Palestine’s religious communities. Christians regarded it as the birthplace of St. George, Jews as the burial place of the Prophet Elias, Muslims as the home of the legendary saint of fertility known simply as Khidr, Arabic for green. According to Hanauer, in his day the monastery was “a sort of madhouse. Deranged persons of all the three faiths are taken thither and chained in the court of the chapel, where they are kept for forty days on bread and water, the Eastern Orthodox priest at the head of the establishment now and then reading the Gospel over them, or administering a whipping as the case demands.’ In the 1920s according to Taufiq Canaan’s Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine, nothing seemed to have changed, and all three communities were still visiting the shrine and praying together.” Source: Wikipedia

al-Kidya, that’s the same Qur’anic and Hadithic Khdir who was a companion of Musa (the brother of Maryam, mother of ‘Isa), the same Khdir who was supposedly endowed with near-absolute wisdom by Allah, the same Khdir who slew and mutilated a youth because said youth was a kaffir (thus making it halal under fiqh for mu’minin to murder prepubescent “prospective unbelievers” according to Sahih Muslim Book 19 Number 4457 [the blood of kaffir pubescent children is mubaa’ for slaughter according to Sunan Abu Dawud Book 38 Number 4390])…

Let a Mohammedan near anything and they insult it just look at the 9/11 plane crash site memorial in the US a Crecent and stars all correctly aligned with Mecca but just a COINCIDENCE says the artist and the moronic moonbats who allowed it.

Let a Mohammedan near anything and they insult it just look at the 9/11 plane crash site memorial in the US a Crescent and stars all correctly aligned with Mecca but just a COINCIDENCE says the artist and the moronic moonbats who allowed it.